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Raga Bhagavathi, Week 2


I have actually visited my lab two times previously, and the last time I went was around the beginning of May when they gave me the materials to use for data collection. Since my project has to do with measuring facial recognition abilities in adolescents, I have to do a lot of work from home to meet with people around our age. So, last week I did data collection from home (didn't think it would be very interesting to blog about since I didn't get to actually to into the lab) and this week I had a substantial amount of data to go into the lab and enter into the program. The first thing I did when I got to the lab was meet with the secretary, Stacey, who showed me where to sit and then began showing me how to enter data into the master spreadsheets. Each individual has to fill out two personality questionnaires and then complete a facial recognition “game” on my laptop. She got me settled into my desk and gave me instructions on how to enter all the information from the questionnaires into their program, which is what I ended up doing for a while because each questionnaire is pretty long. In addition to the questionnaires, participants need to play a facial recognition “game” on my computer, and all the data from that (viewing time, response time, etc.) automatically is put into an excel sheet. Stacey told me that she didn’t know how to do the statistics part of it so I would have to wait for Nick, the post-doc, to get back from his meetings. While I waited for him, Stacey gave me one of the publications that the lab wrote about the study, which was pretty long but really fascinating and gave me a better understanding of what I was working on.
While I was eating lunch, Nick came back, introduced himself to me, and then taught me how to transfer the files from my computer onto their desktop and then enter each individual person’s data into their master spreadsheet. He showed me a few times and then had me do it and sat with me for a few times in case I had any questions. Overall the lab is a pretty quiet place because there’s only a few people that work there, and the PI is currently out of the country (he’s lecturing in Italy!!). It’s a really peaceful place to get work done and everyone is really nice and eager to help if I have questions, which is also great.
                

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